1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the area of hand-held communication devices enabled for voice communication
2. Description of Related Art
Many sorts of hand-held communication devices are known, including cellular telephones and Smart phones of many sorts, as well as PDAs and other portable devices enabled for voice communication as well as other functions.
There exists a population of persons who are speech-challenged or completely unable to speak for a variety of reasons. These persons are not served by the existing variety of voice-enabled hand-held communication devices. There exist, also, circumstances in the use of such devices in which persons with normal voice capability cannot or should not communicate with the device by speech. One example is while a part of an audience at a performance, like a movie theatre, wherein answering a telephone call by voice would be a disturbance to others in the audience. Another is for persons, such as executives, in meetings, where answering a call by voice might also be a disturbance to others in the meeting.
What is needed for speech-challenged people and for persons in circumstances where voice response is not desirable, is a hand-held device enabled for voice calls enabling users to select responses from pre-recorded words and phrases, or to enter text, either of which is immediately rendered as speech through text-to-speech software, to be immediately sent to the opposite party in a connected telephony call.